If you haven’t already heard of local Danny Keith (and his innovative youth-helping-youth approach to curbing hunger), you must be living under a rock. But that doesn’t have to stop you from helping him become People Magazine’s “All-Stars Among Us” 2010 winner. He is one of three nominees in the running for the San Francisco Bay Area, gaining the nod because of the success his charity Grind Out Hunger, in conjuncture with Second Harvest Food Bank, has seen in Santa Cruz (they’ve collected more than 500,000 pounds of food for children!). To vote for Keith, visit mlb.com/peopleallstarsamongus and click on San Francisco Giants. Voting ends June 20. 

The Del Mar hosts UCSC’s fourth annual social documentation student exhibit
The Del Mar Theatre will host UC Santa Cruz’s social documentation program’s annual exhibit of graduate student works for the first time on Thursday, June 10 at 7 p.m. The exhibit, now in its fourth year, is free and open to the public. This year, it features five different stories—stories often unexplored in mainstream media. The stories are culminations of the two years students spend in the program planning, filming, and editing.

Business is looking good for two UCSC students
Fingers were crossed, breaths held in, and nervous smiles exchanged in a silence that seemed to swallow the room. After months of rigorous preparation, seconds separated two UC Santa Cruz students from their $12,000 grand prize.

On Friday evening, May 21, students, faculty and community supporters congregated at Terra Fresca for the final round of UCSC's second annual Business Plan Competition. Founded last year by a group of students in collaboration with faculty members, the competition aims to promote and fund innovative entrepreneurship among UCSC students. This year, the competition began in March with more than 30 submissions of executive summaries.

Evelyn Castle, a third-year health science major at UC Santa Cruz, has been awarded a $10,000 scholarship by the Strauss Foundation to support her work improving the healthcare system of Nigeria. Last year, Castle spent three months helping create Nigeria’s first electronic medical records system, providing both physicians and policy makers with up-to-date information on patients and procedures. With the scholarship, she plans to return for six months and expand the electric EMR system to seven general hospitals and five primary healthcare centers—creating a network of healthcare information sharing and a database that will help NGO’s and policy-makers respond to critical public health needs.

The first Hemp History Week began on May 17 with a slew of events across the nation—and a few in Santa Cruz—aimed at educating people on the deep roots of hemp in American history and the stigmas the useful crop faces in modern times. Participants are sending postcards to the president asking him to legalize hemp, which became illegal to grow in the United States starting with the Marihuana Tax Act that passed in 1937. To learn more about the history of hemp and to hear how Santa Cruz celebrated the week, read the full story at goodtimessantacruz.com in the Fresh Dirt Blog section. Visit hemphistoryweek.com for more information about Hemp History Week. 

Santa Cruz celebrates the long and windy history of hemp
Can the same raw material produce all types of paper, healthy soaps, durable houses, omega-3 rich ice cream, stylish clothes, and bio-diesel? Would it be possible to do it organically and sustainability, with no pesticides and considerably less water? Well, yes, it’s very possible--just not here in the United States.

Here in Santa Cruz, a town well educated in marijuana, seemingly little is known about hemp. While hemp and marijuana are both plants of the Cannabis genus, hemp can’t be smoked like marijuana. Most hemp contains 0 percent Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient found in marijuana. Some contain, at most, 0.3 percent THC, while marijuana contains anywhere between 6 percent to more than 20 percent THC. So, to any doubters, you can rest assured that marijuana smokers will not be setting hemp T-shirts and soaps ablaze in their backyards in hopes of getting high.

Community Agroecology Network (CAN)’s week of events features Darling Betsabe Campos Rayo of Nicaragua

If you’re part of the 54 percent of the American population that drinks coffee, it’s likely you had a cup this morning. But how likely is it that you also pondered about the hands that produced your cup of coffee, and questioned how it came to end up in your hands?

Community Agroecology Network (CAN) is a Santa Cruz-based organization that encourages consumers not only to ask these questions, but also to answer them. They collaborate with small coffee farmers in Central American communities to research methods to grow sustainable coffee and create an alternative and more direct market in which producers receive a fairer share of the profits. To help jumpstart the dialogue between coffee consumers and coffee producers, CAN will be hosting a series of events this week, May 10 through 14, featuring Darling Betsabe Campos Rayo from their partner community in Matagalpa Nicaragua.

One GT reporter shares a first-hand account of Saturday night’s riotous events
My Saturday night started peacefully enough—studying at a cafe, and later deciding to take a walk with a friend. Around 11 p.m., as we returned to Pacific Avenue from our stroll to the Wharf, we heard the murmurs of a crowd and went to see what the commotion was about. The first thing I saw was a shattered shop window next to Lulu Carpenter’s, and two guys in sweatshirts pulling a mannequin out through the broken glass, smiles on their faces. On Lulu’s outside patio, a grown man in a business shirt and tie was seated in a chair, clutching his face and crying. A shard of glass, it appeared, had hit him in the eye and roughly 30 people were gathered around watching while someone poured milk over his face in an attempt to expel the glass.

John Laird, a Santa Cruz Democrat, former Santa Cruz Mayor and former Assemblymember for the 27th District, announced his bid for the State Senate 15th District on Monday, May 3 at Rio Del Mar Beach. Abel Maldonado (R), who formerly held the seat, resigned April 27 after being appointed to Lieutenant Governor. In his speech, Laird maintained his commitments to opposing offshore drilling, restoring California’s public education system, and protecting state parks. Laird also criticized Governor Schwarzenegger’s plans to hold a special election on June 22, which will cost taxpayers $2.5 million, an amount which, according to Laird ,“would save the job of 24 teachers.”